Toby Walsh calls out Hugging Face ethics lead over Books3 distribution and disinformation campaign
TobyWalsh · x · 2026-09-23
AI researcher Toby Walsh publicly criticized Margaret Mitchell, Hugging Face's head of ethics, for watching the platform distribute the controversial Books3 dataset without intervening despite being informed.
In the quoted context, Seth Lazar adds that while he appreciates Mitchell, some authors of the original paper behind the controversy have spent years running a "concentrated and intentional disinformation campaign," policing discourse by framing disagreement as complicity in corporate theft and environmental harm.
The episode feeds the ongoing debate over dataset provenance and ethics governance in AI.
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